Single-Cell Atlas of Patient-Derived Trophoblast Organoids in Ongoing Pregnancies

Abstract

Trophoblast organoids (TOs) hold great promise for elucidating human placental development and function. By deriving TOs in ongoing pregnancies using chorionic villus sampling (CVS), we established a platform to study trophoblast differentiation and function in early pregnancy, including pregnancies with different fetal genetic abnormalities. We addressed cellular heterogeneity of CVS-derived TOs by providing a single-cell transcriptomic atlas and showed that CVS-TOs recapitulate key aspects of the human placenta, including syncytial fusion and hormone synthesis. This study demonstrates the utility of trophoblast organoids for investigating genetic defects in the placenta and describes an experimental platform for future personalized placental medicine approaches, including genotype–phenotype mapping.